How long will this one last?
Answer – 5 minutes
We’ve renamed our two dogs ‘The Pirongia Two’ as they are becoming more well known around the village, especially Jaz. All the local children come out and want to cuddle and feed her – much to Jaz’s delight – the more food she can get (and the more sleep) the better is her philosophy in life.
Peter has built the boards on the compost bins even higher – to prevent Maxie climbing in. Guess what – yep – it didn’t work. One evening Maxie came back in from a so called toilet visit with an orange face! She’d found the carrots, pumpkin and orange capsicum scraps in the skip! So now we have wooden lids – she definitely can’t get in now. We’ve also renamed her ‘Super Max – Skip Raider’!
Peter received an invite to join Microsoft for a day’s racing the America’s Cup Yachts in Auckland. The day consisted of four teams competing in two races and the final race between the two winning teams. Peter’s boat NZL40 won the first race but the team who won the second race (also in NZL40) refused to come back to the support boat for afternoon tea, forcing Peter’s team to use NZL41 for the final race – which NZL40 won. Despite vigorous protests from the crew, the result stood. But a very good day.
The Annual Pirongia Craft Fair was held on the 22nd. We missed last year’s as we were at a Bonsai Conference so we made sure we went along to this one. We arrived on the main road at 9.30 to find the road already packed. It took us two hours to walk up and down both sides of the road (normally we walk round the whole village in under an hour with the dogs). We managed to get some fudge, a stand for a bonsai tree and 5 bottles of wine!!
We’ve been busy preparing our first bonsai to enter into the annual club show next month.
We finally got around to giving the berberis hedge (60m long) a trim. It took all day and many trips in the Ute down the paddock to the rubbish pile. As both dogs tried to help (we even put them in the Ute out of harms way but they jumped out the window!) Ann had to perform several surgical procedures to remove thorns from paws!
Ann’s been busy sowing more seeds and transplanting grasses and plants into the flower bed.
Whilst Peter was in Auckland for another course, Ann walked the dogs separately for the first two nights and then gave up as each time she came back with either Jaz or Maxie the two of them had a huge, snarling, growling fight!
News from Home
Peter’s old boss at Darcast sent him a picture of what happens when a truck driver forgets to set his handbrake. Fortunately no-one was hurt.
